


smoke; mirrors and a show

by notcaycepollard



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Cigarettes, F/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-29 20:11:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11448195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcaycepollard/pseuds/notcaycepollard
Summary: It feels like something he’s lost, somehow; something he should know and doesn’t.





	smoke; mirrors and a show

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nausicaa_of_phaeacia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nausicaa_of_phaeacia/gifts), [zauberer_sirin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/gifts).



This isn’t like the other memories.

Coulson’s not even sure it’s memory, whatever this is. It’s like fragments of a dream he forgot years ago; like smoke, curling away into nothingness, nothing but the taste of whisky and cigarettes on his tongue.

When he wakes, disoriented with the suddenness of it, at first he’s not sure why. Car alarms going in the distance, and all his crockery still rattling in the pantry shelves: an earthquake, just a tremor, but it has him unsettled. He opens the ranch slider, steps out onto his balcony to look out at the street: nothing but streetlights and shadows, a neighbor doing the same thing. Pajamas, the smell of cigarette smoke floating across in the dark of the night.

He hasn’t smoked in years. It makes him think of it: the itch of craving under his skin. He pours himself a whisky instead, but it tastes flat somehow; artificial, chemical and dull all at once. He runs his finger around the rim of the glass, the hum of crystal loud in his too-quiet apartment, and that’s better; that feels more right. There’s something about the sound of it, the low rumble of a quake that he feels only in his bones.

He tries to reach for it, and fails. Throws back his whisky and gets back into bed. He doesn’t remember his dreams. He never remembers his dreams.

 

* * *

  

He’s choosing apples at the grocery store, that’s all. He’s picking out apples; just happens to glance at the hazily misted mirror at the back of the chiller. Catches the reflection of a woman tugging her cuff down over her wrist: softly worn-in plaid flannel over smooth brown skin, and something about the gesture and the shirt and the delicacy of the paler skin on her inner wrist makes his heart clench.

He looks to the side. Expects a braid, for some reason: dark hair, messy like it’s been slept in. She has a blonde ponytail instead; a stranger looking at him like she’s startled by his attention, and he smiles ruefully, looks away.

He buys a pack of red licorice at the cash register. Just a whim; he never buys candy, doesn’t precisely know why. Just saw the pack and reached for it.

It tastes of cherries, sweet and artificial. He doesn’t like it, not exactly, but he eats the packet anyway, spoils his appetite for the spaghetti he meant to cook. A dinner for one, anyway, and if he wants to eat Twizzlers and wine for dinner, who’s going to stop him?

_Thought you didn’t eat junk food_ , he hears someone say. A voice that’s teasing, familiar. _Live a little, Coulson_.

He should do his marking, he thinks to himself. Get his class prep ready for Monday. _Live a little,_ he tells himself, and sets down his pen halfway through the third essay on the fall of SHIELD. Puts on a record and eats another rope of licorice, and it feels like something he’s lost, somehow; something he should know and doesn’t.

 

* * *

 

It happens when he doesn’t expect it. The freeway, traffic slow the way it always is this time of the morning, and in the lane across from him a woman is crying alone in her car: silent tears, the painful twist of her mouth, and something about her face through the window pane and his own half-reflection in the glass is familiar. A girl in a glass box. His own helplessness.

_Couldn’t leave even if I wanted to._

It’s true; he couldn’t. They’re all trapped. But— _is that what you want to do?_ he thinks, _run?_ and doesn’t know why. Looks at his own hands on the steering wheel.

He doesn’t run. He looks away.

 

* * *

 

There’s a bar near his apartment. He doesn’t go; has never gone, and then one day he does. He’s later leaving the school than usual, staff meetings and detention duty and noncompliance reports taking longer than they should, and it’s twilight bleeding into dusk by the time he gets out, the air cool and velvet-dark against his face. It’s enough to make him divert from his regular route home, to think _just one drink, why not_ , to push the door open.

It’s not exactly an illegal bar. At least, he doesn’t think so. It’s just a little less than legal, perhaps; not harboring fugitives or Inhumans but skirting the law in smaller ways. Brands of beer you can’t get anywhere these days, perhaps a Rising Tide newspaper two months out of date. Someone’s reading in the corner: _Fahrenheit 451_ , and Coulson carefully forgets that he’s noticed.

He feels out of place, in his tweed and knitted sweater and slacks. Pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, orders a whisky, rolls his sleeves up. Settles onto a stool at the bar, tries not to look like he’s staring.

There’s a mirror opposite him, tarnished and dirty with fingerprint smudges. Coulson glances at it anyway, looks past his own reflection and out into the dim and smoky room.

A girl turns her head, tucks dark hair behind one ear. The curve of her cheek, the tilt of her chin; it’s so much that Coulson feels an unbearable wave of tenderness that leaves him breathless and stung with it.

He gives in. Buys a pack of cigarettes, and the smoke is hot and sharp, bitter on his tongue, and underneath it all, something kind. Something sweet he should know how to feel.

 

* * *

 

_Daisy?_ he asks, and her eyes are so warm and so surprised in the little square of his rear view mirror; it hits him all at once, and he sees it: the way she smiles small in the corner of her mouth, it’s something he knows all the way down.

_You really know me, huh?_ he asks her, and there’s something about the way she touches his wrist, and something, too, about her careful lack of expression. It’s something he thinks she learned from someone she’s known and looked up to for a long, long time.

 

* * *

 

“I need a cigarette,” he says, and something about Daisy’s mouth is amused when he digs out his emergency pack, stashed in his desk drawer where it’s been a constant and small test of will. His fingers shake when he lights it, and he knows Daisy sees that, too, but she doesn’t say anything. Just watches him, quiet, her expression a little more desperate than he’d like.

_I’m just a teacher_ , he wants to tell her, _I’m just—_ but she’s hopeful, she’s so fucking hopeful, and he can’t face disappointing her again.

 

* * *

 

_God_ , he says later—so much later, and not much at all; another life, another world— _I could really use a smoke_ , and she laughs very quiet and surprised. Tucks her hair behind one ear, and it makes his heart ache.

_You’ve never smoked._

“No,” he agrees, “I guess I haven’t. Not really.”

“You did, though, huh?”

“Yeah, once. Way back when. I quit when my mom asked me. God, years ago now. Never really goes away, though.”

“Your mom?”

_Oh_ , he thinks, and Daisy’s eyes are unbearable: the face of someone who knows what it is to have nothing and then to have it back and lose it again, and Coulson’s a coward, can’t hold her gaze. Looks away.

“Fuck,” he says, very quiet. “I didn’t even—”

“I looked,” Daisy admits, like it’s hurting her to say it and she’ll say it anyway. “For Lincoln. It, uh… I know none of it’s real, but…”

“It never really goes away,” Coulson says, and Daisy nods. Chews her lip.

“I’ll be right back,” she tells him. Pushes herself off the car they’re leaning against, disappears into the corner store down the street.

 

When she comes back, it’s with a pack of cigarettes, a bag of Red Vines, and Coulson rolls his eyes at her even as he’s ripping the cellophane off the cigarettes.

“Hey,” she shrugs, “you quit once, right? I’m sure you can do it again. Live a little, Coulson,” and the déjà vu of it rattles through him, makes him shiver hard enough that she leans in against him all the way from shoulder to hip. “Cold?” she asks, through a mouthful of candy, and he shakes his head. Doesn’t trust himself to say anything just now.

They’re quiet for a long time: just the night and the taste of smoke, the smell of cherry from the candy Daisy’s eating. She’s tired, he thinks; she must be tired; they’re _all_ tired, but she’s quiet like she’s waiting or like she knows he is, and it makes him draw breath, makes him pull together all these memories which feel, still, not quite settled under his skin.

“Thank you,” he says eventually. “For coming after me. For trusting me.”

“Yeah,” she says, a little awkward: he knows this now about her, and again too, like re-learning something he once remembered. When she shrugs she winces in a way that signals it must hurt, and he knows there’s something there she’s not saying, but then she tilts her face up just a little, reaches for his cigarette and smirks when he cedes it to her without a fight.

“I used to smoke,” she tells him, bringing it up to her lips. “Just before I left St Agnes. Behind the school gym with a couple of other foster kids. Thought I was so cool.”

“A real rule-breaker,” Coulson says, glancing at her and then away, something about the glow of the cigarette and the curve of her mouth too much, too close.

“That’s me,” Daisy agrees. “And then I ran away, and real soon after that I decided a cup of coffee and a bagel was more important than a pack of cigarettes. Never picked it back up after that.” She laughs, quiet. Inhales, closing her eyes like she’s enjoying it. Flicks the cigarette away, turns her body in toward Coulson minutely, and then her hand is on his jaw, her mouth close enough to his he can taste the artificial cherry and sugar, and she’s breathing out, smoke in his lungs and her lips warm against his, and Coulson breathes and breathes her in, afraid to move even an inch.

“Daisy?” he asks, quiet enough it’s nothing but a whisper exhaled into her mouth, and there she is: reverberating under his skin like everything he’s never forgotten.


End file.
